I actually really enjoy Jane's character. And some of my personal favorite interactions are the ones between Darcy and either Jane or Natasha. As always, feedback is appreciated.

Calamity, Jane!

The thing about Jane was...well...she wasn't the most sympathetic person that Darcy had ever known. That's not to say that she didn't have a big heart or anything…it's just that Jane's heart was ruled largely by cold logic and the laws of science. Which led to a lot of colorful discussions between the two friends – one a scientist and one very much a humanist.

And these discussions naturally happened in a lot of really sketchy places. Like that time in Puente Antiguo, before Thor, when they were chasing storms in the middle of the night and almost drove off a cliff while they argued about the advances in modern science that occurred during World War II. And later, when they got into it on the face of an active volcano because it was the only place on the goddam island that didn't set their instruments on the fritz. And again, in London, when Darcy tried to address the socio-economic and psychological impact of what had occurred – clarification: what they "willfully and actively played a MAJOR role in, Jane!" – and all Jane could rave about was the data she was able to collect.

It's not that Jane was heartless in any of these scenarios. She did truly care about the well-being of humanity and the ethics of it all. But she was also notoriously one-track-minded.

So, Darcy was far from surprised when she woke up to her little munchkin of a boss tearing through her apartment at four a.m., grabbing all of Darcy's pop tarts and yelling for her to get her shoes on and meet her at the van.

Yes. The van. The van that had survived heaven, hell, and everything in between – the one that Tony tried to have impounded when it arrived at the tower – was still very much a part of Jane's "method."

Remove the van, and superstitious Jane would quite possibly lose her grasp on reality. Darcy made sure that was added to her boss's file when they moved in.

So, when Jane burst into her apartment, Darcy did what she'd been doing for years now. She hopped out of bed and pulled on a good pair of running shoes and a sports bra, not bothering to change out of her pajamas. She threw her hair up in a ponytail while she waited for the coffee to finish brewing. Then, with two travel mugs in hand, she headed down to the elevator and got in the driver's seat.

It wasn't until they were on the street that Darcy realized the city was in a complete fucking panic. The quinjet was doing some crazy maneuver overhead and the Hulk was jumping from building to building snatching dark figures midair.

The roads were blocked largely by abandoned vehicles; children were crying; grown men were crying too. And everyone everywhere was trying to get the hell off the street and out of the way.

Then there was Jane. Jane was chattering away to herself and to Darcy, using terminology Darcy never actively bothered to learn.

The gadgets in the back were beeping and wailing frantically as Darcy drove through the mess that was Midtown Manhattan. Jane rolled down her window to stick the top half of her body outside and hold the little beeping thingamajig closer to the sky. A sky that had filled with clouds and thunder. A streak of lightning followed a certain blonde-haired god as he flew down from who-even-knows-where and into the fray. Jane didn't so much as blink at the noise, at the man she loved, or at Captain America's shield when it flew past and nearly decapitated her. Jane didn't see Bucky catch it and she didn't notice the completely fucking bewildered look he threw Darcy, as she and her boss rolled slowly past him, weaving in and out of the rubble and cars that littered the street.

"These readings are amazing, Darcy!" Jane said in the throes of some sort of academic ecstasy. "We have to get closer!"

"Janie, I don't think—"

"LOOK!" Jane shoved the monitor in Darcy's face, not even caring that she was obstructing the driver's vision in the middle of a war zone. "The readings indicate that the source is just over there!"

She pointed in the direction of a collapsed building, on top of which the Scarlett Witch and Black Widow were battling it out with a horde of shadow-monster looking things. Darcy had a feeling these ones came from space…

"We can't go over there, Jane!"

"I know. I know," she muttered with a huff and looked around. "The van is never gonna make it. We'll just have to go on foot."

And before Darcy could argue, Jane hopped out and started running toward the rubble and the source of her signal.

Darcy groaned and tried to keep from hyperventilating as she climbed out of the safety of the car and made to follow Jane, barely taking a step before an alien arm landed at her feet and started crawling toward her.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. EW.

She tried tazing it, but the electrical current just made the arm crawl faster. Scrambling away Darcy grabbed a piece of concrete from the rubble. Squealing as she brought it down onto the wrist, she beat it until the hand was severed off. Then she dropped the rubble on the hand, hoping to at least trap the still crawling fingers and keep them from following her.

"DARCY" Jane called back to her friend from her place halfway up the pile of rubble. "HURRY UP! AND DON'T FORGET THE PHASEMETER 2.0!"

"Jane, I don't really want to die for science today!"

"We aren't going to die, Darcy! Everything is perfectly under control! Now let's go before we lose the signal!"

Darcy really meant to grab the Phasemeter 2.0 for Jane. She thought the whole adventure was fucking nuts, but she really meant to follow her best friend, if only to make sure Janie didn't willingly go back to the mothership so she could collect better data.

Problem was that Darcy made the mistake of looking around her. She couldn't ignore the fires that had broken out and the people screaming. Darcy had gone to open the back of the van and instead ended up helping an old lady into the subway station people had ducked into for shelter. She was heading back to the van when she saw a little orange paw, reaching out from under a pile of smoking concrete. So, she tore away at the rubble and held the kitten tight to her chest, using her shirt to wipe the gunk off his little nose. She made it back to the van and dumped him inside, gave him water out of her hand. She grabbed the Phasemeter for Jane and went to chase after her AWOL friend…but then a father had lost his son in the chaos. So, she stopped her ascent of the collapsed building and turned back to help the man call out for his kid. And on and on it went, until suddenly she realized that the sounds of fighting had stopped. No more creatures were dive-bombing them from the sky. The Iron Legion had set to work around the city, helping first responders organize the chaos and calm people down. The sun was peeking out over the skyscrapers and Jane was walking grumpily back to the van, completely oblivious to the black goo that was oozing down her jeans and shoes.

"Hey," Darcy said, exhausted.

"We lost the signal, Darcy."

"I'm sorry Janie," She squeezed the other woman's shoulder. "We'll get 'em next time."

"We would have had them this time," Jane cried before climbing into the driver's seat. She continued when Darcy hopped in. "Where did you even go? One minute you were right behind me with the Phasemeter 2.0 and the next it's like poof! You disappeared."

"I disappeared? Jane—" Darcy spluttered. "You disappeared! I was here! Like the whole time! The van was in my line of sight the entire time."

She held the kitten tightly in her arms and cooed while Jane talked on and on about missed opportunities, skewed data, and how distracted Darcy was acting lately.

Darcy hemmed and hawed at the appropriate moments, knowing that after Jane had a full eight-hour sleep, she would wake up to the news of the attack on New York and be absolutely horrified at what had occurred. It would take her another four waking hours to realize that she had in fact been there for the worst of it. By then, she would be in science mode and she wouldn't pay it much more than a passing thought – mind moving a mile a minute as she processed the information she was able to obtain that night.

It took two weeks before Jane noticed a little orange addition to their team, sleeping peacefully in Darcy's desk drawer.

"When did you get a kitten?" Jane asked.

"Couple weeks ago," Darcy said nonchalantly.

"He's cute," Jane cooed and reached down to rub the scrunched-up bridge of his nose. "What's his name?"

"Oh, I named him Fury."

Darcy didn't even bother to look up from her work.